As consistently superb as her voice has remained over the span of seven decades, Live at Mingos is a brilliant showcase for Anita O’Day’s incomparable talent.
Live at Mingos is both quintessential Anita and prototypical jazz because the two elements, though forces might be the better word, cannot be separated.
Anita’s career spans the entire timeline of jazz history, thanks in part to her longevity, of course, but more to her profound understanding and appreciation for the jazz genre.
Unlike most of the “canaries” who came out of the big-band swing era of the forties, Anita O’Day has never sung the same song twice in quite the same way, the mark of true jazz genius and originality. She has evolved and so have the songs she sings on this splendid release.
Whether she’s singing Rogers and Hart’s classics I Didn’t Know What Time It Was or I Could Write a Book, she’s doing them in a way that makes the tunes seem as if they were written only today, while Green and Heyman’s I Cover the Waterfront shows Anita at her balladic best. And her rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust is pure poetry in style and voice. Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields’ The Way You Look Tonight has never sounded better than it did this night live at Mingos. And if Anita’s own Anita’s Blues ’76 doesn’t make you feel like tearing up the dance floor or raising the roof, nothing ever will.
Live at Mingos is not only one of Anita’s best recordings, it is one of the finest in all of jazz. Sometimes magic happens when the paths of great talents cross—the piano of Norman Simmons, the bass of Bob Maize, the drums of John Poole, and of course Anita’s inimitable voice—they all came together that night in Tokyo to make musical magic and one of the most memorable recordings you will ever hear.

Paul Peterson–Hollywood 2004